Beautiful In My Eyes
by phoenixnz
Summary: Songfic - Clark reflects on Lois (futurefic) - oneshot


I touch the smooth lines of the disc, watching as the light plays on the surface, creating a prism effect. I still can't believe after all this time that I still have this. It was a song I chose for a very special occasion. Opening the slot, I slip it in and listen to the piano as it begins to play the first few notes.

_**You're my peace of mind in this crazy world.  
**_

"I remember this," she sighs. I turn and look at her, sitting there on the sofa. "We danced to it at our wedding." She looks as beautiful as she did on the day, or rather the night, that I met her. Of course, I would never have said that to her that night. I was a different person then. But part of me, the part that was buried deep inside, remembers seeing the young woman, with her hair the colour of honey in the darkness of that summer's night. She was striking. She spoke to me, asking if I was okay. I said I was fine.

If I'd been myself, I would have blushed furiously at the thought of being naked in front of this woman. We laugh about that night now. How she was desperately trying not to look whereas I had no qualms about making an exhibition of myself.

When I did finally come to myself, I got to know Lois Lane. And I didn't like her one iota. Okay, so maybe I'm lying.

"Didn't you tell Lana I was bossy, stuck up and rude?" Lois laughs at me, but I couldn't help laughing back.

It's funny how things change.

"You used to finish my sentences for me," I tell her. "It used to ..."

"Drive you crazy," she finished, doing it once more. "Well, I saw that as my job."

But even when things began to get crazy, she was always there to pick me up, punch me in the arm and tell me to 'buck up, soldier'.

"You always used to push my buttons," I sigh, sitting next to her.

"You pushed back," she reminded me.

She was always the one constant in my life, the one person I knew would always be there.

_**You're everything I've tried to find, your love is a pearl.  
**_

It's hard for me to say when I fell in love with her. I think a part of me always did love her, but I had blinders on. I thought I was in love with the girl next door.

"Yeah, you were pretty blind in those days," she reminded me. "It was always about Lana."

"But then I found the one thing I didn't know I was looking for, until I almost lost it."

"Mm," she says softly. "When I disappeared for three weeks."

"I think I died a little then."

"You told Chloe Clark Kent was dead."

"I was so lost."

"I was lost but now I'm found," she quoted from that old song.

"Not until you came back. You saved me," I tell her.

"Admit it, you missed me. You didn't have anyone telling you what a geek you were. You missed that."

I frowned at her. "Okay, so what if I did?"

She looked smug. "I knew it. You liked it when I called you a geek."

I knew she was just trying to push my buttons again, so I decided to turn the tables on her.

"Yeah, but you like geeks."

She laughs. "Not geeks plural. One geek."

She loved me. In spite of all my flaws. My fears, my idiosyncrasies. My father, Jonathan, used to tell me that that kind of love was like an oyster pearl. Beautiful yet rare. And he told me when you find that love, you hang on tight to it.

_**You're my Mona Lisa, you're my rainbow skies,  
**_

We once visited the Louvre in Paris, just to see the art. Well, Lois had a story to write about a major art theft and I was just tagging along. We stopped in front of the Mona Lisa. I used to wonder about that enigmatic smile – almost like the cat that licked the cream, or however the saying goes. Like there was some big secret that the figure in the painting knew about, and she wasn't sharing. Lois gives me that look sometimes and it makes my heart skip a beat.

She laughs at me when I tell her about the Mona Lisa.

"You compare me to a priceless work of art?" she says.

"Well, the key word here is priceless," he said. "There isn't enough money in the world to make me give you up."

"You're such a sap, Smallville," she says, curling her arm around mine and laying her head on my shoulder.

Yeah, I know I'm a sap. But I've always known that however badly my day is going, all I need is to look at her and the day is brighter. It's like it's been raining the entire day and the surface is wet, but then the sun breaks through the grey clouds and creates a rainbow effect. She's like that – my rainbow.

_**And my only prayer is that you realize  
You'll always be beautiful in my eyes.  
**_  
I tell her she's beautiful all the time, but somehow, I don't think she believes me. I mean, yeah, she knows she's attractive, but to me it runs deeper than that.

"You're biased," she tells me. But I shake my head. Beauty is something that comes from within.

_**The world will turn and the seasons will change,**_

We've been through a lot together, her and I. Finding out that I'm Superman, the most powerful being in the world – that kind of threw her for a loop. But she took it in the usual way. By punching me in the arm and smirking.

"You're still a geek, Smallville," she told me.

We've been through battles – with Lex, who wasn't dead, Zod, the meteor mutants, the super-powered aliens. But she's been with me all the way, supporting me, keeping me on track.

And we've had good times too. The births of our three children. Watching them grow. Becoming grandparents. And it did seem funny, especially when I don't look like a grandfather. Hell, I still look as if I'm in my twenties.

"I just tell them you're my boytoy," Lois laughs when she and I are walking down the street together and see the looks from people passing by. It hasn't been easy for her, but she deals with it in her own way.

_**And all the lessons we will learn will be beautiful and strange.  
**_

I remember something Lana once said to me, back when I was fourteen. About life being sometimes painful, sometimes beautiful. I guess if it wasn't, we wouldn't be wiser for it. It's all about learning, isn't it? Lois often says that if you stop learning, that's when you die a little. A woman I used to know told me that life isn't meant to be easy because if it was, it would be boring. A truer word was never spoken.

_**We'll have our fill of tears, our share of sighs.**_

Lois still calls me a sap. I know I am, but you know what, I wouldn't trade this for anything.

_**And my only prayer is that you realize  
you'll always be beautiful in my eyes.  
**_

_**You will always be beautiful in my eyes.  
And the passing years will show  
that you will always grow ever more beautiful in my eyes.**_

I look down at the beautiful woman curled up beside me. She's not as young as she used to be. Her face is lined and her hair is grey. She stopped dyeing her hair when she got to sixty, telling me that it was about time she embraced her aging, rather than shying away from it. That's my Lois. Always meeting a challenge head on.

_**When there are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles,  
And when the time comes to embrace for one long last while,  
We can laugh about how time really flies.  
We won't say goodbye 'cause true love never dies.**_

_**You'll always be beautiful in my eyes.**_

I sigh and get up, knowing the song is coming to an end. I don't want to say goodbye. We laughed over the good times, the silly moments that always happen in families.

She sighed on the sofa. "Time flies," she says softly.

"I know."

"It's not goodbye," she says. "As long as you love me, it's never goodbye."

"I'll always love you," I says.

She smiled. "You're such a sap, Smallville," she repeats.

"Mm, but you love me that way," I murmur.

"Geek," she mutters.

"Gorgeous," I return.

"Please, I've got crows feet the size of the Hoover Dam and my hair is like ..."

"You're beautiful, Lois," I tell her.

She mutters something else and I turn to take the music from the player. When I turn to look at the sofa, she's gone. And I'm alone. Like I have been for the last fifty years.

_**You will always be beautiful in my eyes.  
And the passing years will show  
that you will always grow ever more beautiful in my eyes.  
The passing years will show that you will always grow  
ever more beautiful in my eyes.**_

"You were always beautiful in my eyes," I whisper to her ghost. I hear a sigh and I know she's still with me. She always will be.


End file.
